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Amarilli vezzosa 'Il duello amoroso', HWV82

Introduction

Amarilli vezzosa (which also has the title ‘Il duello amoroso’) was composed and performed near the end of August 1708. It is one of a number of cantatas which survive only in manuscripts in the Santini collection at Münster and which are still unpublished. The singers are soprano and alto (it is Handel’s only cantata for this combination) and the accompaniments are for a small group of first and second violins with continuo. The ‘amorous duel’ is an encounter between the shepherd Daliso (the alto) and the shepherdess Amaryllis: it seems she had once pledged her love to him but has now changed her mind. They meet in a wood. Daliso, resentful at being rejected, decides to use force to gain his desire. Amaryllis warns him that no lasting pleasure can be obtained from an act of violence. When Daliso ignores the warning and still seems determined on his object, Amaryllis produces a dagger and symbolically demands that he satisfies himself by plunging it into her heart. At this piece of melodrama Daliso’s will promptly collapses and he begs forgiveness. He gets none: Amaryllis mockingly hints that she would have relented if he had been a little bolder and, while Daliso rebukes her for her heartlessness, goes on to say that his love could never set her on fire.

Though neither character emerges very sympathetically, the music is always engaging. The opening sonata has a brilliant first movement which perhaps represents Daliso chasing Amaryllis through the wood. In the first aria, for Daliso, the main tune in minuet rhythm is extended by a leaping figure in the violins (hinting at the character’s impetuousness?), later taken up in the vocal line. The easygoing tune of Amaryllis’s first aria expresses her carefree confidence: Handel was especially fond of it and used it in several later works, notably Agrippina (‘Col peso del tuo amor’) and Flavio (‘Ricordati, mio ben’).

Amaryllis’s next aria is an exciting piece: the text speaks of a sailor ceasing to fear the waves of the sea, but the rushing semiquavers in both violins and voice seem to depict him being driven before the tempest. In the last aria Daliso’s hopelessness is conveyed in the broken-up melodic line of a sad siciliana, given extra pathos at the cadences by the use of the ‘Neapolitan sixth’ (A flat in the key of G minor), a favourite device in the music of Handel’s Italian period. The closing duet in A minor (later to be adapted by Handel in the finale of Poro) is a strict minuet, studiously neutral in tone.

Daliso: Pretty Amaryllis, just here in this lonely forest,
where not even the rays of the sun reach,
I have sighed as many laments as I have suffered pains
solely because of your arrogant pride.
Now I would have recompense, or revenge.

Amaryllis: So does the bold desire of a shepherd who loves me
dare so much? And, fool, do you think that the compulsion
of a pledge can give you the reward you seek?
Wretched man, do you not realise that the
pleasure which today your heart desires must
needs be the offspring of my own inclination?

Daliso: Amaryllis, Amaryllis, in vain you try
with false hopes to escape from the snare in which your foot
is caught: though a thousand might be the oaths
of your pledged faith, either the stream
washes away their substance,
or the winds blow it away.

Amaryllis: On then, if stubbornly you would now shut out
the merit of honour: pierce my heart with a dagger,
and then, cruel man, indeed let the tortured affliction
of this faithful heart, for which you have no thought,
be given up to your pleasure, tyrant!

Daliso: What? Amaryllis? Oh God, then …

Amaryllis: No more! I would have you satisfy the wicked desire
that torments you; unfeeling man, come! Why delay?
Take the blade and strike it into this heart!

Daliso: You have triumphed, ah, you have triumphed!
Now I beg forgiveness for a dreadful wrong;
my soul, which was ever given to suffering,
is already eagerly expecting
your just anger at my great offence.

Amaryllis: Here, in good time, comes
Sylvanus, my good father.
Now understand, dear foolish shepherd,
that when you believed the deceitful words
of my well-practised fear, you lost your
opportunity and the pleasure you desired.